Water Box Plus "Dark Water"

[metry]

Ok! I’ve received my blue UV coil. I'm going to twist it in during this weekend.
I'll start posting photos I took without the coil, so you guys can see which way is better. I still haven’t made up my mind on this one yet. Coil does change the general look of the tubes ...
Maybe you guys can help me out.

Here we go with the first set of photos ...

























































































PS: I'm not obsessed by my case. I just got carried away during the photo shoot
I've got so many ways of changing the looks of the case within seconds and it looks really cool on all 5 sides.
Next up will be the photos with the blue coil. (still got to take them)

[xflgkingpin]

obsessed.....

[Maximilian]

Looking fantastic!
You have inspired me to build something similar!
Did you buy the metal fan cover thingys seperately?
Can you mount a HD or two without modding your own bracket, or do you just have to lay them "loose"?
Cheers!
Can't wait to see the "after" pics with the coil...

[Spart]

Wow man. That is AWESOME. Really. I love the mix of the red and blue and the black liquid looks really slick. Also very clean overall. A+ rig most def.

[metry]

Thanks guys. Sorry for posting so many photos. I just didn’t know witch ones to delete! I just put them all. I’ll post less next time. I promise.

@Maximilian
The water box can accommodate 5 hard disks: 3 to the side wall and 2 screwed in a vertical position to the floor.
This links to the pdf instructions from DD:
http://www.dangerden.com/images/stories/instructions/cases/waterbox_plus/CASWB03.pdf
Gives you ideas on how to lay out the hardware and W-cooling.

The fan grills are Laser Cut. I chose the ones that I thought would hurt the air flow the least and still look groovy. I didn’t want the corny ones based on famous games or the simple grill ones. Secondly, a wanted a match between the 80mm and 120mm ones. (Quite hard to find) Thirdly, as I was going for led fans, I didn’t want UV or see threw ones. This way I have a shadow effect. I ended up with these Hurricane Laser cuts.
If you live in Europe and understand a bit of German, this is a rather complete modding site that ships across most countries of Europe. (pay in advance, no CCard) This is where, I found the Laser Cuts that suited me.
http://www.caseking.de/shop/catalog/default.php?cPath=28_47

I think it was also the forums that made me pick this case in the end. I was also inspired by the builds from Bald-Eagle11, DarthBeavis, fenris557. They did cool water box builds before me. Just search the forum for their posts.

[RA1D]

very clean and very awesome! i love the way it looks man.

fyi, tygon makes a black tubing (r-3400) that you can use and not have to worry about dyes and additives for the black tube effect. i'm using it for my build and it looks fantastic.

[woodhand]

hopefully your sunbeam fanbus will last. I had two of those and both died under 1 yr (non responsive buttons).

edit: it might be a pain but I would switch it out now and return it and swap it for a vantec fanbus. only a matter of time before it dies. trust me.

this one may work.

[dark4181]

looks great man, lets see it with those blue coils!

[metry]

I've got the coil on. It took my 3 hours to twist it in. (well I was watching some CSI at the same time) I definitely recommend to put coil on before ceiling the loop. I was just too impatient to have the rig running.

@RA1D
Pity I didn't see that before: black tygon

@woodhand
Thanks for the advice, If anyone had asked me my opinion concerning the fan controller, I would have not recommended it. It's a bit cheap and the actual usage sucks. The only good thing about it, is it looks cool. One thing I didn't know (my fault) is that digital controllers make the fan leds blink when you adjust the rotation speed down. Lucky for me the fans on max are quite. I have an other analogical zalman fan controller sitting in my older build. I was too lazy to take it out and I'm also thinking of selling it. Maybe I'll keep the controller for replacement. Time will tell if my sunbeam dies on me.

Hopefully I'll find the time to take the picks and upload them this week. Stay tuned!

[MaverickGun]

If we're talking about fan controllers for the moment, I really like this one. It's really well made, and you can change the color of the display and face plates to match your color scheme. Not only that, but it can easily handle multiple fans per channel, though that doesn't mean too much in your case since you don't have too many fans to begin with. It can output some heat, though so if you were to connect multiple fans you may want to put some microsinks on there as well as a small fan to cool things down a bit. You likely won't need that, though. I took a long hard look at the Zalman when I was gathering parts, and I didn't like that it could only handle 7 Watts per channel. The LEDs are also pretty bright, and change color according to how high the fans are turned up. I believe the color goes from red for higher RPMs, to blue for lower RPMs. All in all, the Superflower is a nice, well made fan controller IMHO.

With regards to your case, it looks really great. Nice cable management, nice color scheme, excellent job fitting everything in there and still keeping everything clean and neat. Hopefully, my case will look as nice too once everything is over and done with .

Mav

[metry]

Hi Mav, Thanks for the suggestion. Yeah, the zalman leds do shine more depending on the fan speed. You can see what I mean on my other fan controller. I left it in my other rig because I just couldn't see it in my waterbox ...



Fan 2 and 4 are on max and fan 1 and 3 on min. The two red lights shine in blue in you switch them on +5v. You can control 6 fans, but two have to be adjusted with 2 selectable speeds. (+5v and +12v)

Something else to take in consideration with my case: The Water Box Plus is thick and has some visible space over the 5.25" bay and if your fan controller is just a thin plate, you can see everything that normally is hidden. Thats why I choose the sunbeam, as it is a closed box.




Does anyone else have a proposition/link for the ultimate fan controller?

[RampantAndroid]

Hi Metry,

Thanks for the amazing post. I have a few questions:

I'm looking to WC my system, much similar to yours and I was hoping that you could confirm a few things. First off, my system:

Q6600 B3 Stepping (ouch, I know)
8800 GTS 512 MB G92
eVGA 680i SLI
Antec 900 case

Now, the antec 900 is not the greatest for this - I've traditionally gone for air cooling, thinking WC was...extreme (a while ago it was...but its becoming more feasible in my mind) To give you an idea of the 900's size, use this:

Oh come the hell on. I can't post a link. Lets just say the case is smallish. A 3x120 radiator mounted with the top of the radiator being mounted where the 120mm exhaust fan on the Antec 900 is, would reach to the bottom of the case.

Now, I haven't OCed anything. My 8800 GTS G92 is slightly overclocked straight from XFX and runs a bit hot...50C idle, 65C load if I keep the fan on 100% so it sounds like I have a leaf blower running. For the CPU, I keep it around 35C with a Thermaltake V1 heatsink.

Now, I'm looking at the MC-TDX for my Q6600, which from what I've read is one of the best for pressure drop. One question I have is, what video card water block to use. If I buy a special 8800 GTS G92 water block, its good for that card only (bleh), but if I buy a Maze 5 I'd need to buy a set of RAMsinks and voltage regulator sinks such as this one:
come one. I can't post URLs. Fine, I'm talking about iandh's 8800 GT/GTS G92 set. It covers the RAM and voltage regulators using two pieces of aluminum, passive solution.

Now, the total price of the ramsink kit + the Maze 5 comes to be the same as a 8800 GTS G92 IONE water block, but I can at least ruse the Maze 5 (now, would the Maze 5 come with all I'd need for the 8800 GTS G92?)

Also, do you find the 2x 120mm fan radiator to be sufficient? I don't plan to OC my Q6600 any time soon, I'm just looking for a better cooling solution for my videocard and figure I'll also put the CPU on it and take care of the two worst heat sources.

Also, I notice you used no reservoir, and only a fillport. Do you recommend this over using a reservoir?

Thanks!
RA

[metry]

Hi RampantAndroid,
Yeah, you need 5 posts for links and picks. But i googled the things you wanted to link, so I've got the picture.

You want to mount the rad outside, on the back of the case. I thought of that too, on my Kandalf case. I think it's a sweet spot to avoid making a monster mode for the 3x120 Rad.

The MC-TDX is a great waterblock. I've settled down on a 24/7 overclock @ 3.44Ghz for my Q6600 G0 with 1.4volts. Some say they can do 3.6 with 1.4v but on mine I need 1.49v to be prime95 stable.



Temps in Idle are like this:



I'll do a complete post on my overclocking results latter on. I just wanted to share my "late" discovery: Everest has a built in plug-in for the logitech LCD G15 keyboard, which you can customize as you want. So cooool.

I've read a lot on Q6600 G0 stepping and the results are very mixed. => There are series that are better then others. Anand has an article were they compare B3 and G0 stepping but their overclocking results for the G0 are poor and weird. You can check it out here: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/intel/showdoc.aspx?i=3066

For the video card. It's a mix of different decisions and compromises you have to make.
What I can say is pros and concerns for the full coverage waterblock.
Pros:
- Better cooling (on all hot spots on the GPU)
- Better looks. (makes sense if you can see it in the case)
- If you go SLI. It's much easier to fit in your case and less tubing/bending/length of the tubes. In my case, the orientation of the fittings is ideal for my tubing
-Overclocking results might be better (but that depends on a lot of things)

Concerns:
-Must have a reference layout of the 8800 GTS
-Fits only this card. You will need to buy a new waterblock if you upgrade.

As I don't have a maze 5 and I don't want to give you advice on something I've never tried. Maybe someone else from the forum can comment on that.

On the performance side with the Ione, I'm very satisfied. For 24/7 gaming I set it @ 785/1980/1060 (core/shaders/mem : stock is 650/1625/970) I use RivaTuner ot unlink the core and shader clocks. You need the latest version and import a special config file for the GTS 512.



I can do the default benchmark in 3Dmark06 with higher settings : 802/2020/1120 and hit 16'878pts. But you need a volt mod for more stability, if you want to use this in high resolution gaming.

As for the 2x120Rad, with good fans, rated more than 70CFM, pulling air threw the Rad, you should be able to handle your setup @ +- stock settings. I'm talking here about the thermochill Rad "PA120.2"
It depends also on how much noise you accept from the fans ... Wind tunnel vs silent watercooling. My advice is to calculate the total TDP of the components you want to cool vs the flow rate air/water threw the Rad. Thermochill have a page with graphs for different CFM Fans. Check it out here : http://www.thermochill.com/PATesting/index.php#PA1202

Take time to make your decision, this is only my point of view ... Don't hesitate to ask others on this forum for more advice, as I'm not a watercooling guru with hundreds of builds.
Cheers!

[RampantAndroid]

Regarding the rad fans, for a 2x120 rad, how would the Panaflow 120mm mediums do? They're rated ~80cfm @ 35dba, which if this were any other brand of fan I'd not trust those ratings, but for a Panaflow, they seem about right. If I'd do that, I'd simply use 2 120mm Panaflows, not a push/pull like you did (no room for that, really...) and I think a 2x120 would fit my case OK. For the purposes of not obstructing my PCI slots and allowing me to access both DVI connectors on my 8800, I was considering mounting the radiator inverted, if you will. Most rads I see mounted with the top of the rad mounted to the 120mm exhaust fan of the case. What I would do instead is mount the bottom of the rad to the exhaust fan of my case so the rad would stick above my case a little bit. That may be asking for trouble with things catching on it, but I feel it may offer better airflow and certainly allow my PCI slots to remain unobstructed.

For the video card block, I would go for a maze 5 I think, and grab iandh's ramsink kit...I'd sooner just risk having to dump 40 USD on a ramsink kit and still be able to use the GPU block, than dump 110 USD on an entire full coverage GPU block - don't get me wrong, the thing looks awesome, but too costly esp if I upgrade cards at any real interval. Any thoughts on that?

Regarding my motivations for WC, I'm not going for an overclock per se - my CPU temps I'm happy with, but I've got a huge Thermaltake V1 hanging off my mobo...its the videocard that is annoying me. If I would water cool, I might push the video card a bit more, but not that much (esp if I just grabbed a maze 5) - I've never OCed a CPU....not much inclined too since I won't see much of a benefit from it. With that in mind, you you recommend I go for the extremes of air cooling (and that presents its own problems...) or continue on this track looking for WC?

Also, why the thermochill 120.2? I was eyeing black ice GTX 2x120 actually - is it just the fit spacing? They're equally priced, for the most part. Also, how do I properly calculate my total TDP (sorry if this seems a bit newbish, I didn't take thermodynamics in college ) Lastly, regarding your fill setup - do you recommend just using a t connector and fill port over a reservoir?

finally, for flow rates, I used "Martin's flow rate estimator" off of his martinsliquidlab site, and using the same setup as you, except swapping a Maze 5 in, I get rated at 8.48 LPM with a pressure of 2.6m. Does this seem about right, and good?

Thanks for the in depth post, I really appreciate it.
RA

[metry]

Fans rated between 70 and 90 CFM are fine for pulling air threw a radiator. For the rad position, it’s mainly for air bleeding that the fittings are place towards the top. It’s not a big deal if you mount the rad with the fittings downwards, because all you have to do during the filling process, is tilt the case 90° so that the side were the coolant comes out of the radiator is the higher then the side where the coolant enters the rad. (thermochill rads have an air-bleeding valve for this, so it’s much easier to get the air out and you don’t have to tilt your case so much). This is where the fillport is handier then the reservoir as you can “bend" it towards the top during the tilting process.
I missed your question in your first post about the reservoir. I went straight for the fillport, as my case is very compact and hasn't got much room.
The reservoir is not necessary if you have a fillport, because the fillport acts as a reservoir. With time, the coolant is going to evaporate and the height of the coolant in the fillport will go down. But nothing extraordinary, maybe 1/2 inch in 6 months; once all the air is out!! To be sure your fillport will workout, it needs to go from the bottom of your case, to as high as possible. That way, it’s as long as possible => During the initial filling of your loop, the longer the fillport is, the more headroom you have to insert coolant in the loop.
I’ll explain: you fill up the fillport (not right to the top because there will be some fluctuation switching the pump on and off), turn the pump on, once the fillport is nearly empty or your pump is stuck on too much air, you turn it off, add more coolant in the fillport and repeat the process until the loop is running. Next up, is air bleeding and leak testing for 24 hours. (Tilting the case helps get more air out, like I said before)

For the GPU, I think it’s a wise decision to go for the maze 5. On a second thought, there is also not much headroom on the GTS 512 for memory overclocking and the ramsinks will work fine, if you have good air flow in your case.

Water-cooling the GPU will give better temps and overclocking potential then any air cooling system, as the size of a gpu aircooled heatsink is limited to 2 slots. On the contrary, one does see some massive, heavy air cooled heatsinks on CPUs, which can get close to results seen on average water-cooling systems. But generally, water-cooling is superior, but all depends on your Rad, fans, pump, tubes and how much heat you need to remove for the components you’re cooling. This is where the total TDP is important to calculate. TDP means Thermal Design Power. It is the heat envelope in watts that your hardware will produce under heavy load. Manufactures like AMD, INTEL and NVIDIA give the TDP @ stock settings. For the 8800 GTS 512 and the Q6600 G0 it’s 105W each. But if you overclock and increase the voltages, your TDP will rise as well. The formula goes like this:
OC Wattage = TDP * ( OC MHz / Stock MHz) * ( OC Vcore / Stock Vcore )^2
If you want to make your life easy, you can use this page to calculate this:
http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psuc ... orlite.jsp
(It’s also great for other things; I’m sure your figure out what …)

On the radiator side, the ability to remove and dissipate heat is sometimes called thermal resistance. But I won’t go into details here. So to resume and simplify: The ability to dissipate heat needs to be superior than the total TDP of your components in your loop (pump include, if you want to be precise) The ability is what the graphs on the thermochill page show … Depends on the fans CFM, flow rate of the pump, type of radiator …

The black ice GTX 2x120, in my knowledge, is close in terms of performance to the Thermochill now. They say Thermochill is better with low airflow. I can’t confirm.
I think the GTX will work fine in your setup.
Concerning Martin's flow rate estimator; I think 8.48 LPM with a pressure of 2.6m is excellent => It means that the ability to dissipate is only linked to the airflow threw the radiator, because the graphs flatten out after 8 lpm.
here's how my setup is estimated:



For example, if you throw in a chipset waterblock, you loose a lot pressure and flow… That’s why one should only water-cool the main components and not the rest for the looks …

Hope this helps and hasn’t scared you too much. I find it’s a new experience to go water-cooling, as you need to document yourself and understand a lot more about hardware. Believe me, it’s worth it.